Us and Them
by altairattorney
Summary: All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them. - GLaDOS, Portal - Spoilers for Portal 2


_Us and Them_

"I remember telling you not to come back".

The woman steps in nonetheless, as sure as ever in the curtain of darkness. The outer world doesn't seem to have changed her much – except for the fresh cuts on her legs and cheeks, she is untouched by the flow of pain, and her eyes shine with their usual fiery light.

"As if it really mattered now. Don't we have something else to worry about?"

Her voice is rough and low from the long silence, and yet it keeps a sweet frequency, a hint of the harmony it must have in natural conditions.

GLaDOS swings on herself, startled. Hearing that voice feels like falling in a precipice again.

"You can actually talk".

"Only when it's really important".

The yellow optic shifts nervously on Chell's features, so unstable, so unsure. As humans do, she is growing unable to hide what's on her mind – at least from _that _horrible person.

"I assume you have a very good reason for showing up again. Unarmed, wounded and without a Portal Device. I hope so, in fact – for your own safety".

The woman's eyebrows harden in a mask of stubbornness.

"There's no room for chit-chat now" she hisses. "You let me down on this one, GLaDOS".

"Who told you to call me like that?"

The computer backs up the slightest bit as Chell pierces her with a glance – the woman knows her well, way better than anyone else, and she enjoys for a second the taste of her little victory. In front of death, all beings have the same vulnerability, the same fear.

The noise of bombs starts quivering in their room, so far away but neat and constant – Chell's vibrating eyes soften, caught between sympathy and resignation.

"You thought they would never come, didn't you?"

"To be honest, I have no clue what you're talking about".

The woman investigates the ceiling. The sky is darkening beyond the broken panels, announcing heavy rain in no time; and a column of dust rushes from the fields, along with the first gunshots. And GLaDOS sees far in her mind – she can't figure what that strained feeble woman must have lived since the day she left, and grows closer to her, almost against her will. She cannot pretend not to know herself.

"Sorry you have to face the truth at last" Chell says bitterly. "But there's no escape this time. Not even you have the power to stop them".

The sounds of those words are her defeat – and for real, forever this time. The huge machine curls on her joints, and her voice changes a great deal. It's surprising how she looks closer to a shaking child.

"What of this place then? What of me... what of you?"

Sometime, that moment has to come, the moment when not even the greatest genius in the world can find a solution. In life, it seems, problems are never scientific.

They will have to wait – right now, Chell sees no other thing to do than sit down next to her, thoughtfully embracing her own knees.

"I'm afraid it's all theirs now" she mutters in the thick orange fabric. "We own nothing but the time we've left".

Their silence is increasingly broken by the noises – they are ready to pour in and wipe away every trace, every appearance of order, stealing what eventually belongs to the both of them.

And GLaDOS has nothing to say; she has been abandoned by her irony , by her sarcasm, by her destroyed robots – by everything, in fact, except for the frail bundle of flesh and bones now trembling with the floor.

"As long as it's me, well you don't have to care" Chell adds without any emotion. "I was bound to die here after all".

The machine fidgets uneasily, adjusting her optic many times. The safety system sends her thousands of signals, screaming in her head the sounds of danger, with endless minutes of insistent sirens. But even if she were in calmness and in the best conditions, she would never find the words to express what she is feeling. She has feared the same way, very often – but this danger is unknown, massive. This is the real end.

"They – I – I can't do anything".

In spite of her own confidence – of her own unbreakable experience – Chell was not prepared to her weakness. Not this way. And she, as GLaDOS is taken in the rush of energy, has to hold her metallic head tight not to let it shake with the chipped panels.

They have broken through the farthest security doors, they swarm through the facility. Chell knows the AI can feel their steps – the white masks run and shout orders in the test-chambers, staining the pure white of the tiles with their dirty boots.

"You can" the woman yells in her face. "The last thing that can be done now. Sing".

"_What?_"

They can barely believe their senses; but nothing usual happens when a world ends – they have to take everything as it is. And even now, as the gargling and squeaking sounds rise from the bowels of Aperture, they manage to have a contact, a string of words around their hearts, as unusual as it may be.

As her test-subject's grip grows steadier, GLaDOS tries to put together the remains of her confidence.

"You _are_ brain damaged after all. You really should-"

"Sing!"

It sounds absurd, irrational, useless – although Chell seems to know exactly what she is doing. GLaDOS lowers her head. For once, once again, she'll leave it all to her.

Chell's tone is almost a chant now. No coughing, no contrasts; just the old harmony in the utterest chaos.

"Just sing until it all ends" she whispers. "You always did – and they are coming. There's no time".

No alternatives but nothing. And so, together with the courageous tears of the kneeling woman, GLaDOS surrenders once and for all. She sings out her pain with all the notes she knows – her tune mingles with explosions and laments from the falling walls, her screams find their harmonic associations in the acid waves. _They _are running, t_hey_ are jumping; there's nothing left to do. And Chell stands up and runs and fights through the air, mingling her voice with hers – it's strong and so beautiful as her own, amplified by the bottomless abysses of pain. She follows her human as she waltzes in a musical war dance, trying to give her courage – no one knows for what and in what way, since it all is finishing. But she is a human; humans don't explain.

Her steel body collapses as the song grows fainter into a quiet lullaby. It is broken and ruined, but the woman knows the tune. She runs back to her – it's time, for both of them.  
>Chell kneels carefully, lining the edges of her huge head with shaking fingers. She never feared this moment – she feared the way it would happen, and she can't choose whether what she feared was her own end, or something else's.<br>She has to be quick – but the answer is close. A thick cable sticks out of GLaDOS' head, throwing vivid sparks in the dying neon lights.  
>The darkness doesn't leave much choice – the sparks of electricity, for the first time in her Aperture life, are completely inviting.<br>Chell doesn't have to fear. Her dried tears have gone, calmness is her master now – she touches the sparks in no time, with gleeful and strong will.

A few steps ahead, the broken doors fall to let Combine forces rush in. They have had a hard time – reaching the central database of Aperture was not that easy. And now that they are here, they don't find what they were looking for – black boots meet shards of glass and concrete, piled on the center of the room.  
>There's nothing; nothing more than a huge steel wreck and, right behind it, the shape of a lean white foot. They have lost – they have conquered empty chambers.<p>

* * *

><p><em>All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them.<em>  
>[GLaDOS - Portal]<p>

So... what happens when you decide to do something completely different and kill both of them when ugly Combine faces get there? XDDD  
>I hope you enjoyed this experiment of mine - I have no idea how it turned out, but I hope it's readable.<p> 


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